My Miserable Sanctuary
by DuckofIndeed
Summary: The Power Station was many things to him. A prison cell and a safe haven, a place of comfort and of untold loss. But, little did Vin know how completely it would take over his life one day. A first-person narrative, detailing Vin's life up until his final moments.


Vin is actually my favorite character of the series, and since I always like writing at least one story for each of my favorite characters, I decided I would write up a little something to kind of explore his life and to get some practice writing from his point of view.

This story contains major spoilers for "Jak II", and the characters (aside from Vin's family) and much of the events are property of Naughty Dog, who I very much wish had treated poor Vin better….

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**My Miserable Sanctuary**

All my life, people never seemed to know me by my real name. I mean, like it's that hard to remember. It's just Vin, one syllable, not so hard, right? (And it's not short for Vincent, so don't ask.) One of the more recent names I was given was "that crazy guy that works in the Power Station" or sometimes just "the foreman", though that first one was much more popular, and I guess that wouldn't be so bad (except for the "crazy" part) because at least it was better than the names I got called as a kid. And I had a lot of them, all revolving around the numerous things people thought were wrong with me. My glasses, my fears, not to mention the one that was the most embarrassing.

You see, when I was a kid…I don't really like to talk about it, but I stuttered. Yeah. It was bad. So bad that it started when I was too young to ever remember not doing it, and it sorta went…well, it sorta didn't stop until I was a teenager. _That_ bad. The only reason it ever did was because my parents finally found a therapist that knew how to help me (great, like I needed _another_ reason to get beaten up) and because my father was starting to get pretty impatient at that point. It's not like it was my fault or anything, not really, but I guess when you're the kind of guy that likes everything just so, having a son that can't get more than a few words out without butchering them is a bit of a problem.

So, even though it was probably stress that started my "speech impediment", as the therapist called it (a term that really only served to make it sound worse, if you ask me), and that was the same thing that made me do it even more than usual, it was the fear of my father's disapproval that somehow got me out of it. It wasn't like he was a bad guy or anything, just intimidating, and my mother said I shouldn't take him too seriously because he obviously never learned to smile. That was the same reason, she claimed, that he died from a heart attack just over a decade ago, but I don't know. I think it was more likely the stress he always put himself under, not so different from what _I_ always did, which made me worry even more that I would be the next to go. If the Metal Heads didn't get to me first, that is, or if the Baron didn't eventually do me in….

And even when the issue of my stuttering finally went away, it never _really_ did, because I could never stop thinking about it. It didn't matter that, in theory, I could talk to people like a normal human being again, because I still couldn't. I mean, I still couldn't talk to people. Because I still had plenty of _other_ things about me that made them think I was weird, and I also worried that if I started talking again, what if my stuttering just…comes back? It can't…it can't come back if I don't say anything, and so I didn't. Not any more than I had to. It was a bit ridiculous, really. I could hardly even talk to my younger sister, Rael (my father obviously liked short names; he said they were more efficient, which isn't really true if people still don't remember them), and she certainly tried hard enough to get me to speak to her more. And I…I wish I had, too, while I could, but that doesn't matter right now.

I couldn't talk to my own sister, even though she did plenty of talking herself to make up for it, and I couldn't talk to anyone when I went to college, either. Not that I had time for it by then anyway, though, not with all the work I piled onto myself, necessary or not. Because _that_ was one thing I was always good at. Work. I was good at getting things done, because I was smart, apparently, a genius, according to the IQ tests, but I don't know how accurate a number is. All I knew was the one thing in my life that I could actually devote myself to was working or studying, both of which I did plenty. And even though my parents had money, my father thought I should work for everything I had, which was fine with me, because I would've done it anyway, but not so fine with my mother, who sent me money in secret whenever she could, which I always sent right back until she threatened to come to the university and brag to everyone about how much smarter her son was than the rest of them, which she _would_ do, because her and my sister had no shame, or maybe I just had too much of it, for a reason I could never figure out.

Anyway, yeah, that pretty much summed up everything I did back then. Studying and working and only hearing snippets of conversation while I was in the library or hard at work at the odd jobs I could find for myself. I only _heard_ about the lives of others, only paying half a mind to what went on around me because they were lives I wasn't a part of, and whether or not I wanted to be didn't matter, because there's no point in wanting something you can't have. Because that would've required me to talk to other people, and like I already said, I couldn't. I just couldn't.

Because even though my stuttering went away, my fears didn't. Not my phobias of germs or enclosed spaces or the panic I'd feel whenever people got just a bit too close or even the aversion I had towards shaking hands (I'll never understand why it's considered impolite to refuse to shake the hand of someone who could very well have a deadly and contagious disease). And if anyone got to know me, they would find out about these fears, and not just the ones that kept me a stranger from everyone else, but also the ones that weren't so obvious, as well.

Because the fears they _didn't_ know about were even more embarrassing than the ones they could all see on the surface. At least, _I_ thought so. And they weren't just the more "normal" ones, either, like a fear of burglars or of being killed in a house fire or being wrongfully accused of a crime you didn't commit, which were all a lot more possible than most people believed. No, I also worried about passing some whacko on the street and giving them the wrong look and inadvertently causing them to follow me home, and… You see what I mean? But, these things happen to people that don't expect it, so maybe if I _do_ expect it, maybe then it _won't_ happen?

Anyway, I had so many things I would obsess about that I couldn't sleep at night, and all I could do was stay up thinking about them or go back to studying so I could try and get my mind on something else, which was no longer an option once college was over and I had my Econetic Energy Doctorate on Precurian Theoretical Physics (which didn't sound all that useful, really, but my father did plenty with his Doctorate in Philosophy, so he really had no right to say anything).

And so, when I finished college and moved into my own apartment, a really seedy place whose front door didn't look anywhere near as solid as I would've liked, I got another job at night so I wouldn't have to be home, worrying about all the things that felt just a bit too likely in a place like that. And you'd probably think I would be exhausted from working several jobs, and I was, but if I wasn't going to sleep at night anyway, I may as well spend my time being productive. And I could use all the money I could get if I was ever to escape from that murder-waiting-to-happen that I was currently living in. So I just drank all the coffee I could until my hands shook, and I got by. I moved up both in the jobs I was able to get and the places I lived, and all the change was fine, because it's not like I got to know anyone, and it was probably for the best I didn't stay anywhere long enough for them to really find out just how much of a mess I was.

And then, when I was working at the strip mine on the island outside the city (imagine, Vin the four-eyed bookworm, driving a bulldozer), I found out that the guy that had been working in the city's Power Station had quit. The work had been too much for him and the stress, as well, I had heard, but if there were two things I had gotten used to dealing with, those were it. It was perfect because this was one job where you didn't have to be around other people. I had heard the guy, whatever his name was (ha, sound familiar?), worked all alone in a room full of computers, only talking to people occasionally through a radio, which I was sure I could handle, as that would, at least, be better than talking to people when they were staring at you. (That was another thing that made me nervous. Being stared at. People don't seem to blink nearly as much as they ought to.)

Well, before I make this story any more boring than I already have, I got the job at the Power Station, and it was a dream come true, no matter how cliché that sounds. The hours were long, the work never ending, and the pay not nearly as good as it should be, but it was enough that I could afford a better apartment, not to mention a few extra deadbolts, and I could finally have peace. I mean, it wasn't like I had ever been a part of society anyway. I was always just…there, living my life while everyone else lived theirs. I was not a part of the real world. I never was. And now, there was no longer any need to pretend.

And so I worked all day on those computers, keeping the Eco Grid running as it should and maintaining the city's shield walls. It was important stuff, but I always worked myself to the bone on even the most pointless things, because that's what I do, so it didn't make much difference _what_ it was that I was stressing over. And at night, if I couldn't sleep (if I even was able to go home in the first place), I would brave the city streets (I am well aware of the fact that I practically emit a vibe that screams "victim", but if someone was going to mug me, and they had on occasion, they'd do it whether or not they had the cover of nightfall) to return to the Power Station, _my_ Power Station, the only place where I could feel useful, and the only place where I could feel safe, as it was one of the most important places in the entire city, meaning it was also one of the most secure. It was the only place where I could be myself. The only place where I wouldn't have to talk to people or feign being a part of something I wasn't. People always liked to call me a nerd, a sentiment that was only strengthened when I began to spend all my time with computers and scrolling numbers, and well, yeah, I guess I am, but I'm perfectly fine with that. You're pretty much destined to be one if you have all the traits that I have, but strangely enough, that was one name I was never ashamed of.

But, it's just my luck that the good times never last, or in my case, you start to find out they're not quite as good as you expected them to be. I guess not ever being around other people can start to take its toll, a problem I never expected to have, and it only got worse when the Baron brought Haven City under a dictatorship that I knew was coming before it even happened. My workload tripled, and it became even more vital than ever that I kept a close eye on the city's Eco levels, which seemed to be dropping at a faster rate than they ever had before, a task that had taken on a whole new level of importance when we needed that Eco to maintain the shield walls in order to keep out the Metal Heads that had recently begun to attack the city in a unified effort that made those monsters so much more terrifying than they were on their own. And with the Metal Heads outside the city and the Baron's Krimzon Guards within (I swear there were times they were contemplating my demise, both of them), nowhere was safe but my Power Station, the place that had become like a prison even when its blast proof and password-protected door was a comfort.

Sometimes I wouldn't leave for days on end, stockpiling food and water and coffee in the corner so I could stay there and stare at the rapidly depleting Eco levels until my eyes felt like they would fall out. I couldn't take my attention off of those screens for one second, or else I just knew something disastrous might happen. But, it didn't matter. In the end, despite my vigilance, it didn't matter, because by the time I caught the glitch, the one that resulted in the city's greatest sorrow since the Baron took power, it was too late. The shield walls around the oldest part of the city just dropped, with no more forewarning than the tiny error I didn't find until days later, and the city was overrun with Metal Heads. So many people died, so many people whose deaths I could have prevented, if I had just seen that glitch before it had become a problem. It didn't matter how hard I worked. It didn't matter how high my IQ apparently was or how much I obsessed over the numbers constantly scrolling by on the computer screens. In the end, that section of the city was lost and later renamed Dead Town. And my sister… That was the hardest thing to get over. I…I never visited my mother ever since, because I just knew I would never be able to look her in the eye again after what I let happen. I don't know if she would have blamed me or not, but my father probably would have, if he was still around.

Well, I didn't end up losing my job, even though I was certain I was going to. And if I wasn't so busy bawling my eyes out over my sister, I probably would've been sick to my stomach instead, waiting for the KG to take me to the Baron's prison for what had happened, where I would never see the light of day again, even if that wasn't terribly different from how my life was now. But, they never came. For some reason, they didn't, and I continued to work in the Power Station, that horrible room where one mistake could mean the deaths of thousands.

My efforts to prevent another disaster, even when I had been completely powerless to stop the first, consumed me, it really did; it nearly ate me up until there was nothing left but a jittery man with hair that had gone white before it should, that was kept up for days at a time thanks to dozens of cups of coffee and an unending need to stare even harder at those screens to make sure I would never make the same mistake twice. Even though, I don't even think the coffee was necessary at that point because my heart had begun to pound in my chest at all hours, coffee or not, which only grew worse when I somehow found myself joining the Underground in their fight against the Baron, and then I would stare at the door almost as much as the screens, waiting for the day the Baron would find out about the treason I was committing against him, and I'd be dragged away to his prison, if I wasn't simply executed, which he had done to countless resistance fighters before me.

And some nights, where every imagined sound would send me into a panic, as I worried that I'd either be brought to prison or die from a heart attack just like my father did, I wondered why in the world some poor, cowardly wretch like me would put myself in such danger as I had becoming one of the Underground's informants. It's not like they appreciated what I did anyway, and it just wasn't like me to risk myself, even for someone else. Because I was a wimp. That's what everyone thought. People said I was the biggest coward there ever was, and if everyone I met said so, it was probably true. And when I couldn't stand to stare at the screens or the door any longer, I would break down into tears, that's how pitiful I had become, fretting over all the things I had ever worried about, in addition to all the new ones that I had found were, at best, equally as terrifying. And the only relief I ever got was when I would look at those screens again and find that all was as it should be and when yet another morning arrived where I was still alive, and the KG hadn't yet busted down the door to take me away.

And you know what, the stuttering came back. Not as bad as before, but it still came back. And that, in some ways, was the worst thing of all. I wasted so many decades worrying it would return, I hardly spoke to my sister while she was still alive, and it still came back in the end. I never got to know anyone. I spent my whole life alone, and for what? So I could make myself sick and exhausted, unable to eat because my stomach wouldn't allow it, while I was kept up all night listening for the sound of the KG at my door or working at a job that was killing me. None of it paid off. _None_ of it. I-I gained nothing from it all, the…the isolation I put myself through…there was no reason for any of it. Oh, Precursors, why did I do it?

And so, that's…that's how I ended up spending the last few years of my life, shivering and worrying and stuttering for all I was worth in my cage, the only safe place left in the world, when I wasn't working myself so hard I could hardly stand it anymore. Eventually, a guy named Jak and his talking weasel, or whatever he said he was, named Daxter showed up to fight the Baron, as improbable as it sounded that those two would be able to make any sort of difference. But, they did, somehow they did, and the city was finally free of the Baron's reign and the threat of a Metal Head invasion. I just wish I could've lived to see it.

I mean, in a way, I guess I did, or else I wouldn't be able to tell you these things right now, but, well, it's complicated. Because…I died, sort of, when the man named Kor revealed himself to be the Metal Head leader and sabotaged the city's shield walls to let in all the Metal Heads I had been working so hard to keep out. Everything I did was for nothing, it seemed, but at least I was able to warn Jak about what had happened, before…you see, what happened is…

You know what, the details aren't important. All that really matters is, the Power Station became…after I was…I was injured, badly, and my pathetic self couldn't face what I knew came next, I downloaded my brain into the Eco Grid, allowing myself to…exist, as I was no longer truly alive, inside the computers of the Power Station. _My_ Power Station. It really is now, more than ever, because…now…

The Power Station's…all I have left.

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So I hope you enjoyed it (I think I did pretty good writing in first-person, considering it's something I don't do very often). I had fun writing this story (and writing for him turned out to not be too difficult, as I must confess to a decent understanding of what it's like to be paranoid….), as I got a chance to explore what Vin's life might have been like and even got to come up with the members of his family, as well. At the same time, however, I feel quite sorry for poor Vin, with all his fears and the negative light in which people seem to see him in the game. Anyway, I hope I did this very underrated character justice. Please review.


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